


Untitled Beverly/Deanna Story Featuring Gumbo and Quiche

by 1701Trekkie



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29478078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1701Trekkie/pseuds/1701Trekkie
Summary: Taking place between chapters one and two of "These Quiet Hours Turning Into Years," this work features newly-Q Deanna Troi and Will Riker separately making visits on Earth. Deanna visits Beverly Crusher at Starfleet Medical, while Will visits a creole restaurant in New Orleans looking to learn a coveted dish.
Relationships: Beverly Crusher/Deanna Troi, William Riker/Deanna Troi
Kudos: 3





	Untitled Beverly/Deanna Story Featuring Gumbo and Quiche

**Author's Note:**

> This was the second story I wrote for "These Quiet Hours..." but second-guessed it for so long that I ended up posting "The Icarus Factor" first. This takes place during Season Two of TNG, but the events on the Enterprise aren't relevant for this story.

**San Francisco, Starfleet Medical, Stardate 42231.7**

Deanna Troi,Psy.D., Member of the Q Continuum, Lt.Cmdr. (U.F.P.S.) ret., until recently of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_ , peered out floor-to-ceiling windows across the Presidio campus, over Fort Winfield Scott, and at the waves of the Pacific Ocean lapping against the base of Helmet Rock. “I love this office. The view is better than I expected.”

“Everyone needs a doctor so the happier they keep us, the better for everyone involved. It used to be a conference room.” Beverly Crusher, M.D., M.P.H., Commander (U.F.P.S.), Director of Starfleet Medical, sat in a grey chair behind a glistening white desk with a single monitor on it.

“ _You_ stole a conference room?” Deanna responded, surprised. She’d spent a fair amount of time with the doctor in the short time they served together on the _Enterprise_ , and the idea of Beverly being selfish surprised Deanna.

“Technically,” Beverly confessed with a shrug. “My office was bigger than the conference room, so I traded. We’re less cramped for presentations now. More voices in the room usually means better ideas. Medicine is supposed to be a collaborative process.” 

Of course, Deanna thought. Beverly always put the good of her patients before her own, so it was not surprising in the least that this seemingly selfish move was actually beneficial for all. What a benevolent Q she would make, Deanna thought in passing, not that such an offer would ever be on the table. 

“It’s hard to think collaboratively when you’re omnipotent,” Deanna said as she crossed to sit in the chair at Beverly’s desk.

Beverly folded her hands and leaned forward onto her desk. “But you and Will are still getting along well?” 

“Of course we are, but that’s not why I’m here,” Deanna said as she relaxed into the chair.

“I was wondering if you were going to get to that. You’re not here on… business, are you?” Beverly and Deanna had spoken by subspace a couple of times since Deanna had become Q. They had talked out Deanna and Will’s rules for ethical omnipotence and Beverly had admitted that, on their face, they held up well. The main part of their rule, that they will not let callous fate take a life if they could stop it, meant that they often appeared just before or just after disasters.

“No. Like we promised, we’re not going to change history. If we cured all disease everywhere, then we’d be playing god. No, the other Q are testing us just as much as they’re testing the rest of humanity. They want to see that we can be responsible, or at least not abusive,” she shrugged. ”They’re just being less evasive about it now.” 

“Hence the rules,” Beverly noted. 

“Precisely,” replied Deanna.

That left Beverly with more questions than it answered. “So then why  _ are  _ you here?”

“You,” Deanna said bluntly. “I wanted to see why you were back on Earth! I was shocked when I heard.” Deanna bounced in her seat, hands in her lap. Deanna liked to know what was going on with her friends, and Beverly shared that same streak in spades. 

“It was a fluke, really,” Beverly replied as she took her own turn to stand. “Dr. Seymour was retiring and gave me a call. They needed an interim head and my name came up.” She walked over to the replicator and ordered two hot chocolates.

“You could have said no,” Deanna remarked, recalling her own momentous life change. 

“I could have, but I had ideas that can really help,” the doctor said as she passed a wall display cycling through schematics of medical instruments. Deanna recognized a handful of them and saw that many of these contained significant upgrades. She took the hot chocolate Beverly offered and held it.

“We’re planning to stay around on Earth for the next day or two. Will’s got his own plans, so I’m on my own. Do you have plans for the next couple of nights?”

“None tonight but I have a symposium starting on Thursday, why do you ask?”

“I thought we could have dinner,” Deanna said warmly.

“Of course, there’s a place I’ve been looking for an excuse to visit.” 

They took matching sips of hot chocolate and looked up at the same time. Deanna wasn’t fast enough to get the next word in before Beverly changed the topic again.

“So what else is going on with you and Will?” 

**\----**

**New Orleans, French Quarter**

William T. Riker, Member of the Q Continuum, Cmdr. (U.F.P.S.) ret., formerly of the U.S.S.  _ Enterprise _ , walked up the brick-lined alleyway behind Sisko’s Creole Kitchen. The green door stood ajar with a half-dozen crates of produce sitting outside it, waiting patiently to be unpacked. He stuck his head in and looked around. He saw a man in his mid-fifties with an apron that matched the door and a white towel over his shoulder. “Chef Sisko?” Riker called.

“Who’s asking?” replied the man, his back still to the door.

There was no doubt in his mind, this was the man he was looking for. “It’s Will Riker, sir. I left you a handful of messages. I was hoping you would meet with me about your gumbo. It looked like you never responded,” Will half-asked, trying to give the man an excuse for ignoring him. “I’ve been traveling a lot, the responses might have gotten lost in subspace.”

“No, they didn’t,” responded the polite but surly gentleman. Joseph Sisko was slight, much slighter than his deep voice would imply, and at least a head shorter than Riker. Sisko turned back to walk past Riker and into the alley. “If I had wanted to meet with you, I would have said so.” 

Riker pursued. “I wanted to come by anyway. I was in the neighborhood.” 

“Well it’s a beautiful neighborhood,” Sisko responded. “Don’t let me keep you from seeing it. Get some beignets at Cafe du Monde and coffee with chicory in it.” 

“A little warm for hot coffee, isn’t it?” 

“Oh it’s barely springtime!” Sisko had still not paused to focus on the conversation. He produced a PADD from the pocket of his apron and began taking inventory.

“I grew up in Alaska,” the bearded man noted, shrugging. 

“That would explain it then. Go have a Hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s, weather’s perfect for it.” He was a tourism board unto himself when he wanted to turn away unwanted visitors.

As Sisko started to walk back into the kitchen, Riker stepped in his way. Tall and broad, he filled the doorway. “I’d rather talk about you.”

“And I’d rather tend to my aubergine stew.” Unfazed, Sisko placed his PADD on Riker’s sternum and pushed firmly. Riker gave way and let him pass. 

“Did you listen to any of my messages?” Riker repeated, frustrated.

Sisko harrumphed and threw his back against the wall. He crossed his arms and glared at the young man stealing his precious time. “The first, and I stopped the moment you said that you wanted to learn from me. I’m in no mood to take on apprentices, especially ones that can’t handle the heat. This is a restaurant not a culinary school.” 

“What can I say to convince you?” Riker added, his enthusiasm obvious. 

Sisko paused and smirked to himself. Free labor is nothing to sneeze at, even when he didn’t have overhead to meet. “Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Riker, and showing up here after me ignoring you tells me you’re at least persistent. You know how to clean crayfish?”

“I’m a quick study,” he said, his eyes lighting up with excitement.

“Fine then, I’ve got ten kilos to get cleaned and we open in…” he dramatically checked his PADD, “six hours.” He removed the towel from his shoulder and tossed it to Riker. “Get to it.” 

“Yes, sir!” 

**\----**

**San Francisco**

Deanna and Beverly sat at a round two-top table at a restaurant overlooking China Beach as the sun dipped to kiss the horizon. Deanna had ordered sushi and all that remained was a single disappointing piece of salmon.

“Have you ever been to Alaska?” Deanna sighed as she poked at the orange flesh.

“We thought about doing a family trip up there but never got around to it,” Beverly responded. She had ordered seaweed salad and there was nothing left in her bowl except some sesame seeds. “Once Wes starts the Academy we’ll go up for a weekend. Will’s from there, right?” 

“When you do, you have to try the salmon,” she said, trying not to talk about her Imzadi. “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever had. Not replicated, not transported. It’s really amazing.”

Beverly wiped her mouth and set down her napkin. Picking up her iced green tea, she asked “Why do you eat, really? You don’t need it.”

“No, but we still like it,” Deanna responded, tossing her chopsticks onto the plate. “Eating every day helps us mark the passage of time.”

“But you’re just wasting the food,” Beverly said critically. Deanna conceded that it was fair criticism. 

“We thought about that early on. Our general rule is don’t eat if it would waste limited resources. If someone else will have less because we have a meal, we’ll skip meals for as long as we need to. No one is going to go hungry without this fish. It was caught before I ordered it, and my single order doesn’t increase the demand.” She looked at the last piece again and felt a tiny pang of guilt. She picked her chopsticks back up, dragged the disappointing salmon through a puddle of soy and wasabi, and popped it into her mouth. It was disappointing compared to Alaska, but still perfectly fine. Her moment of reflection was interrupted by Beverly speaking again.

“And what about the… biology of it?” Beverly asked as she gestured from Deanna’s mouth and down the length of her body. 

Deanna swallowed the last bite. “Always a doctor?”

“And you’re always a therapist,” Beverly answered. Neither of them could really turn it off, but it didn’t bother them. 

“Fair enough. My biology is whatever I want it to be,” she said, hoping no diagrams would be necessary. “Unless I have a pressing need to be something else, my body operates the same way it always has.”

“Even…” Beverly looked at Deanna’s lower abdomen and gestured. 

“Beverly!!” She laughed, reaching for her own drink. She had wanted saki, but would have had to settle for synthehol. Instead she had a Fog Cutter. “I suppose I could still get pregnant and have children if I wanted, but if I don’t want to have a period I don’t.”

“Do you ever want to?” The question was serious. As far as Beverly knew, she was the first human doctor that a Q trusted to answer these questions. She was pushing back the frontiers of medical science over dinner with a friend. It was the best of both worlds. 

“Well, I suppose it would also remind me of the passage of time,” Deanna mused. “I haven’t put much thought into it either way, honestly.”

“What about your hair and nails? Do they still grow?” Beverly was in her element now. She didn’t see anything even vaguely unethical about asking these things, and since she would ask before publishing anything this was little more than a curiosity. 

Deanna humored her. She hadn’t talked about these things with anyone other than Will, so it was nice to have someone else. “If I want them to, or I can make them any length at any time.”

“What about scars?”

“Still there,” though she didn’t specify what scars. “We can be anything we want at any time, but when I think about going back to ‘normal’ my body goes right back to the way it was that first day.” 

Beverly continued to pepper Deanna with questions of growing complexity for the next half-hour. By the time the server finally offered dessert, Deanna was eager to change the topic.

“Going back to that day when we left,” Deanna said after ordering an Irish coffee. “It all happened so quickly, I never got to say goodbye properly. How did everything work out?”

“Jean-Luc was mad. Still was last I saw him,” she said as her hot green tea arrived. “Some of us were happy for you two. Tasha became First Officer, that part you know. She seemed happy for you, but I think she misses you sometimes. Will could go a long way to patch things up with Jean-Luc though, if that’s what you’re really concerned about.”

She shook her head, Will and the Captain were not at the forefront of her mind. “I was concerned about you.”

“Me?” Beverly seemed surprised to be the topic of conversation. They had chatted on subspace and she thought nothing more needed to be said. 

“I wasn’t close to a lot of people on the  _ Enterprise _ , mostly you and Will and Tasha. How you felt meant a lot,” Deanna confessed as her coffee arrived. She looked into it and kept speaking. “I didn’t want you to feel like I’d abandoned you.”

“Deanna!” Beverly pitched her voice up and put a warm hand on Deanna’s forearm. “I would have come here anyway. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity! I’m getting to direct research and help organize relief missions in ways I never thought I’d be able to.”

Deanna let out a soft breath. The touch went a long way to calming her nerves. Beverly’s emotions were never far from the surface and Deanna knew Beverly was being honest in her excitement.

Deanna felt the caffeine and alcohol hit her bloodstream. While anything that happened in her body required her permission, she had let the Fog Cutter and Irish Coffee have their way with her inhibitions for the night. She grew excited and her eyes lit up. “Let’s go somewhere.”

It wasn’t a good time for the Director of Starfleet Medical. “It’s 2200 already! You might have all the time in the universe but I have a meeting before the symposium starts.”

“Come on,” she pleaded as she put down her coffee to take Beverly’s hand. “You’ll be back in more than enough time, I promise, and you’ll feel as rested as you ever have been. Q’s Honor.”

**\----**

**New Orleans**

Will Riker trotted triumphantly into Joseph Sisko’s kitchen, wiping his hands. “What’s next?” he asked.

Sisko didn’t look up from the aubergine stew he was slowly stirring. “What do you mean, what’s next?” he said matter-of-factly. It had been less than half of the time it should have taken even a good worker to clean that amount of crawfish. “What’s next is you finish cleaning the crayfish.”

“They’re all set,” Will responded matter-of-factly. 

“No, they aren’t,” Sisko said. He remained unmoved from his spot, paying rapt attention to the stew’s consistency. He stirred with even strokes that always brought him a sense of peace and focus. That sense of peace was being disturbed by William Riker. 

“Go check!” replied Will, growing insulted. “They’re spotless!” His voice stayed measured, but his tone was becoming that of a spoiled child. He did his work, dammit! 

Sisko sighed and set down his spoon before turning the burner to low. He turned slowly in place to stare at Will. “‘Spotless’ and ‘Clean’ are two different things, young man.” He crossed his arms and signed. “What are you really doing here?”

“I’m doing what you asked me to do, Chef,” Will said, confused. He didn’t do well with father figures. For all the issues he had with his dad, there was still an instinct to do what they asked. He would have been a good son if he’d had a good father. This father figure, however, was still more forgiving than his own. 

“First, no, stop calling me Chef. You call me Mr. Sisko or ‘Sir’ until I tell you otherwise. Second, you cheated, didn’t you?”

For a reason he could not explain later, Riker played dumb. “What do you mean?”

“I listened to your first message again.” He reached into a drawer and produced a PADD with a news story on it, one about him and Deanna redirecting a lava flow. “I do listen to the news holos, believe it or not. I know who you are. You used those powers that alien gave you, didn’t you?”

Riker responded like a scolded child, sheepish but defiant. “And what if I did? The job got done.”

“No, it didn’t,” Sisko responded, returning the PADD to the drawer and slamming it shut. “Cooking isn’t just about putting the right ingredients in the right place in the right amounts. It’s about taking the  _ time  _ to do it right. It’s as much ritual as it is recipe. You didn’t do it right, you did it quick.” 

“But it’s done!” complained the omnipotent man. Sisko was starting to test Riker’s own patience. “You realize why I want to do this? I want to do this for you!”

“Like hell you do!” He wasted a second hand-towel of the day, this one also thrown at Riker’s chest, only this time with dismissive intent. “You’re doing this for yourself, and until you realize that you have no place here.”

“I--” Riker struggled to explain, but was cut off.

“Goodbye, Will,” Sisko concluded, pointing at the back door. 

“Mr. Sisko, I--”

“I said goodbye!” 

Sisko would brook no further comment, and his face froze. His gesture at the back door remained frozen and Riker, coming to his senses, slunk back into the alley and out into the French Quarter.

**\----**

**San Francisco**

“Where are we going?” Beverly asked as they walked down a nondescript Californian street. Stereotypically, a shallow fog had begun to settle over the streets. Their feet disturbed it in low ripples as Deanna led Beverly along.

“Somewhere special,” the omnipotent woman beamed as she said it. “You like to dance. Not just perform, but dance?” They had been friends for only six months on the  _ Enterprise _ and, while they had been friendly, they still had much to learn about one another.

“Yes, but I’m not really dressed for--” 

Deanna cut her off with a knowing look from under her brow. She wagged a finger at the doctor and then pointed to the ground. “Stay right here.” Beverly came and froze on the mark indicated. 

Deanna walked a bit ahead of Beverly in the growing twilight and disappeared for a moment around a lamppost. On emerging, her outfit had transformed. Instead of the very conservative pants and shirt she had been wearing a moment earlier, Deanna instead wore a flowing pink jumpsuit. The cuffs came to just above her ankles and flowed with alternating shades of dark and light pink. She twirled to present her outfit for Beverly. The fabric of the waist ran from a V just below her navel, up across her back, under her arms, crossed over her heart, and met finally at the nape of her neck. Her dark hair hung loose and long down to her elbows. 

Deanna gestured for Beverly to look at herself. The Doctor found herself in snakeskin from neck to toe. Her arms were bare except for a pair of snakeskin cuffs, and the jumpsuit ran from built-in platform heels to her shoulders, where two massive lapels played at being epaulets. The front was open from neck to navel with a circular brooch at the sternum preserving her modesty. Deanna conjured a hand mirror from the aether so the good doctor could also see the thick snakeskin collar and the breathtakingly permed russet hair she now bore. 

Beverly, normally the most serious person in the room, laughed uproariously. “That’s amazing, Deanna! Where are you taking me, a disco?” 

“Not just any disco…”

The fog around their ankles disappeared in an instant. Music washed over them as Deanna grabbed Beverly’s hand and ran with her toward a bouncer and black awning that was not there moments before. The crowd parted in front of them.

“We’re on the list!” she yelled without stopping, as they dove headlong into Studio 54. 

**\----**

**New Orleans**

William T. Riker, jazz enthusiast and amateur cook extraordinaire, ate beignets and drank chicory coffee on the patio of Cafe du Monde. The five-hundred-year-old tourist trap was across from Jackson Square where buskers played competing jazz standards. Artists alternated with fortune tellers around the perimeter of the fenced park, while a Spanish Colonial cathedral loomed over them all. 

The ancient clusters of painted metal tables and chairs at the Café sat under a large canopy. Will found himself surrounded by the inane chatter of people talking about what they had liked and what they disliked about the city. A Tellarite couldn’t stand the crowds, while a Deltan was shocked how an equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson remained so prominent in this day and age.

Will ran through his memory of American history and came up blank on Andrew Jackson. He could certainly go and meet Jackson himself right now. Discuss with him what he had accomplished, why he had a statue, and all of those things. But his powers had gotten him in trouble enough for one day, and he was loathe to repeat that mistake so quickly. He asked a server for a PADD and used it to look up the history of the square and the man at its heart.

At first blush, Will Riker liked the swashbuckling frontier nature of Andrew Jackson. A frontier lawyer, duelist, and brave general who had “saved” New Orleans in an unnecessary battle that could only have happened in the ages when it took months to receive news across an ocean. Today only a few days were needed to pass messages from one corner of the Federation to another.

As he learned about Jackson’s time as American President, though, Riker’s eyes widened. Something about growing up in Alaska, then leaving Earth altogether, allowed him to be blind to much of the history of the continent. Races of humanity were something that was discussed, but he didn’t understand much. 

He pored through the literature as he consumed cup-after-cup of tourist-trap coffee. Good as replicator technology was, something about this coffee still felt stale and mass-produced. The longer he sat there, the more he started to put himself in the shoes of someone like Joseph Sisko. This monument still stood in the middle of his hometown, just blocks from where he worked and lived. 

Will crossed the street and ascended the stairs to the raised plaza surrounding Jackson’s statue. All around there were displays about the history of the square, the history of the statue, and putting all of it in historical context. He learned about Congo Square, not far away, which had been home to a slave market. The weight of history slowly crashed down on top of his head and settled on his broad shoulders. 

Joseph Sisko lived in a museum to history that Will Riker had never bothered to learn. A history where men who looked like Will Riker had done horrible things to men who looked like Joseph Sisko.

Will’s feet brought him back to Sisko’s open green door as the place was closing after service had ended. He knocked. 

Sisko looked up with a sigh and shook his head. “What do you want now? I don’t have time for nonsense.”

“I took the tour,” Riker said. “I want to apologize, I was being presumptuous,” he admitted sheepishly.

“They used to say talk is cheap, young man.” 

Will resolved to, at the very least, make an effort. “How about I cook for you, breakfast tomorrow? Sign says you don’t start dinner service until 1800.” 

“And you’re going to make me some magic soufflé and want me to fawn over it? No thank you.”

Will raised his right hand. “I promise I will use only whatever fresh ingredients I can find, and will replicate only what I can’t find. I won’t use my powers at all.”

“And I’m supposed to take your word for it?” Sisko leaned against his counter and looked at the aspiring cook, becoming amused with the man’s persistence.

“As a Starfleet officer. Or as Q, whatever makes you more comfortable,” Will smiled.

**\----**

**New York City, New Year’s Eve 1978, 9:15pm**

Deanna was ruined on holodecks since she gained these abilities. Holodecks were, at best, hollow pursuits with stick figures going through the motions. Now she preferred the real thing. Real places, the real people, and most importantly of all, the real emotions. Heightened emotions of a hundred souls washed over her and she breathed them. Signs everywhere told them what day it was: “Happy New Year 1978!” 

Beverly looked back out the door they had just passed through. She had been whisked in so quickly she hadn’t had time to even realize where and when she was. As it sunk in that it was winter, Beverly mused that she had hoped to see snow. Deanna felt that Beverly was sad about that but responded with “Oh, it snows in here all year long.”

“What?” Beverly responded, confused. 

“Nevermind,” replied Deanna, finally releasing Beverly’s hand. 

Beverly finally looked around and took the place in. The disco music washed over them, the scent of cigarettes hung freshly in the air, and people were having the time of their lives dancing, talking, and drinking. Beverly’s eyes went wide and her mouth agape as she finally looked at the ground. This wasn’t simply a carpet that glittered and shone across the whole ballroom. Gold and silver glitter covered the floor ten centimeters deep. 

“Deanna, look at this!! It’s like standing in… in…” her words failed her as the entire scene overwhelmed her. Deanna wrapped an arm around Beverly’s waist and brought her to the bar. They could see themselves in the mirror on the wall. Beverly’s ears were ringing with excitement.

Down one end of the bar sat a woman, still noble in bearing but clearly starting to fade as a movie star. Dark hair stood out on alabaster skin as she regarded the entire party. She was clearly in between dances, but her violet eyes never rested on one place too long. 

Beverly couldn’t stop looking around and gasped audibly as Deanna was ordering them drinks. She tugged on Deanna’s arm and practically squealed with delight and started thinking out loud. “That’s… Is that Martha Graham?! That’s Martha Graham!!”

The woman she directed Deanna’s attention to was old for this time period. To them, she would probably be in her hundred-and-twenties, for this time perhaps her eighties. She moved with the music as if she was solid sinew, her age clearly not interfering with her enjoyment of the atmosphere, the music, or the movements of her own form. “They called her the Picasso of Dance! Why is Martha Graham here!?” 

“Oh,” the bartender replied, “Halston threw her a party here and she just keeps coming back.” The bartender assembled a pair of Old Fashioneds for the two women. 

Beverly looked at Deanna with wide pleading eyes and the empath responded aloud. “Don’t let me stop you! Go! Meet her!” She placed her hand on the small of Beverly’s back and gave her a gentle nudge.

The snakeskin-clad doctor disappeared in a blur, leaving Deanna with two drinks and no fewer than three interested admirers.

**\----**

**Studio 54, 11:45pm**

Deanna let herself feel the exertion of dancing, it wouldn’t be the same experience otherwise. She did not have the endurance of the good doctor, nor that of the eighty-three-year-old Picasso of Dance. With her legs, thighs, and buttocks beginning to ache she finally, regretfully, retreated from the dance floor to find a place to rest. Her heart continued to race in her chest. 

She finally collapsed onto a couch next to a young woman just entering her thirties with black, spiky hair and bangs. She was complaining to someone named Jack about not feeling tired. The fair-haired man pulled her off the couch nonetheless, saying something about a meeting at Carnegie Hall the next morning, clearly not bothering to wait for midnight. 

Beverly twirled into place next to the couch and collapsed in line with Deanna. Their heads fell side-by-side, their legs hanging off opposite ends of the couch. Beverly laughed again, a giddiness that had not abated for an instant of the last three hours. 

“That was Martha Graham!!” Beverly panted, calming her body. “How did you know?!” 

“I’m extraordinarily lucky.” She opened her mind again to let the energy of the room sink in. Beverly’s apparent giddiness sat atop simple contentment. 

“This has been the best evening of my life!” Beverly turned her head and found herself nose-to-nose with Deanna and made eye contact with her lips. She yelped and jumped back in surprise, not having realized how close they actually were. Beverly lost her balance and, since her feet were dangling, gravity pulled her the short distance to the floor. She landed face up, wide-eyed. Deanna’s racing heart sped back up for the unexpected closeness, and jumped again as Beverly disappeared off the edge of the couch. 

Deanna peered over the edge of the couch to see the doctor’s red perm splayed out in the bed of glitter that now reached halfway up the side of her body. They laughed in unison. Then they were silent as they looked at each other. The music dropped away and it seemed to be eerily silent.

The silence was broken by an announcement from the master of ceremonies. “Dom’s coming around everyone, two minutes to midnight!” 

Deanna reached an arm toward her friend, and Beverly took it without breaking eye contact. Lost in space for just a moment, Deanna also forgot she was not entirely steady. Her balance failed and she began to tumble to the floor, but ultimately landed on all fours with her face in line with Beverly. There they stayed for a moment, Beverly on her back in glitter, Deanna on her hands and knees, both staring until a server cleared his throat and said “Dom Perignon, ladies?” 

Deanna rose to her feet and Beverly managed likewise, and they seized glasses of champagne just in time for the MC to speak up again.

“Ready everyone? Ten… nine…” As the room counted as one, Beverly wrapped an arm around the bare skin of Deanna’s back and pulled her close. Beverly’s emotions remained deeply content and joyous as the room counted together “...Two… one… HAPPY NEW YEAR!” 

Beverly leaned over and gave Deanna a soft, quick kiss on the lips. It lasted barely an instant and ended with a smile and a “Happy New Year, Deanna.” 

Deanna, still neck-deep in a sea of everyone else’s emotions, smiled back and responded “Happy New Year, Beverly” before Auld Lang Syne began to echo through the room. 

**\----**

**New Orleans, Sisko’s Creole Kitchen**

“It’s not bad,” Joseph Sisko admitted of the Quiche Lorraine that William Riker had prepared for breakfast. Even the crust, clearly handmade, was decent. Riker bit back the urge to comment, it wasn’t just ‘not bad’ it was perfect and they both knew it.

“I’ll give you this,” Sisko said looking up at him, “you appear to have some talent, assuming you kept your word and did this all by hand.”

“I did!” Riker snapped before catching himself “...sorry.” Of course it was by hand, Sisko had watched him every moment.

“There’s still one thing you’re missing,” Sisko said while pointing to a kitchen stool for Riker to sit down. “Food is unique and personal in a way no other art is. Picasso, Rembrandt, Monet - you can still enjoy their art today. Food is fleeting. That’s the point of it.”

“And you don’t want it to go on?” Riker still missed the point here, but he was trying desperately to understand. All-powerful certainly didn’t mean all-knowing and certainly not all-wise.

“The point is that when I’m gone, it’s gone. And I want it to be that way.” Sisko set down his fork and laced his fingers together. “Others don’t feel the same way, and that’s fine. But while I’m here, people want to come taste my food, talk to me about it. I am part of my food, and it’s part of me and everyone I feed.” 

“I think I know what you’re getting at,” Riker bluffed, hoping he would soon understand. 

“You’d learn the food and I don’t doubt you’d learn to make it exactly the way I do,” Sisko said as he pulled back from the counter and rose to start walking. “Point is that it’s mine. In your hands? It’s yours. Same thing with jazz. This city has produced so many things that have been taken and packaged and sold out in the world. Homogenized for convenient consumption.”

Riker looked down at the countertop. Is that what he had wanted to do? The question bothered him.

“But this city has endured,” Sisko continued. “Six hundred years and counting. Wars, floods, and who knows what else is to come. But New Orleans belongs to its people, its people belong to themselves, the same way that gumbo belongs nowhere but in my hands and on my customers’ plates.”

Riker sat back and sighed heavily. He came to understand, in his own way, that this was not his place. “In that case, next time I’m in town, I hope you’ll be good enough to serve it to me.”

“Only if it’s on the menu!” Sisko joked with a straight face. “I’m only one man, I can’t make everything every day!” 

**\----**

**San Francisco, Stardate 42233.1**

Dawn broke over the city by the bay and two conservatively clad professional women walked up the hill to the Presidio. Nothing about them hinted at the night they’d just spent in 1978. At least, nothing obvious. Deanna knew that hidden somewhere in Beverly’s mane was enough glitter to keep reminding her of the evening for the next month. 

They arrived at the courtyard in front of Starfleet Medical. William Riker was sitting on a bench, one raktajino in hand and another in a lidded cup next to him. 

Beverly put her arms around Deanna’s waist and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I had a wonderful time,” she whispered before pulling back. “Come and see me next time you’re here? I’ll make sure we have more time.”

Deanna smiled and kissed leaned in to kiss Beverly on the other cheek. “I wouldn't miss it for the world,” oblivious to the pithy nature of the comment. That day would never come. The next time they met, it would be back on the  _ Enterprise _ . 

The good doctor hustled toward her office, stopping only long enough to give Will a quick hug and chaste kiss on the cheek before heading inside. He wanted to start talking about the seismic stabilizers on Rigel III, but saw Deanna’s eyes following Beverly as he handed her coffee over. 

“Good night?” he inquired. 

“Yeah,” she said, breaking her eyes from Beverly. She looked up at Will with a content smile. “The best.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Perpetual thanks to convenientmisfires for encouragement and inspiration, and for providing the inspiration pics for Deanna and Beverly's outfits at Studio 54. 
> 
> The Studio 54 trip was based on a TNG comic I found by googling: https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Crusher_54
> 
> The wikipedia article for Studio 54 mentions all of the patrons I allude to, and also the time when ten inches of glitter was dumped on the floor for New Year's Eve. 
> 
> Over a couple of revisions the Deanna/Beverly scenes got less romantic and less intimate as Tasha became more prominent, especially after I adapted "Manhunt." 
> 
> Sincere there's only the one Will/Deanna scene at the end, I figured this should be a separate work.
> 
> I still don't know what to make of Will's storyline. I wanted to tell the "Will doesn't learn Joe Sisko's gumbo recipe" story, and I can see Will (and many characters in Star Trek) not giving a second thought to the idea of race in the context of food. I felt like exploring this, even though Sisko's main motivator in the story is avoiding appropriation rather than being a teacher about race. 
> 
> Thank you all again for reading!


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